Adventures in Blackmoor - your experiences?

Quasqueton

First Post
Thirty-seventh thread of a series on the old classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure modules. It is interesting to see how everyone's experiences compared and differed.

Adventures in Blackmoor
da1.jpg


Did you Play or DM this adventure (or both, as some did)? How about the following Blackmoor modules, Temple of the Frog, City of the Gods, and The Duchy of Ten? What were your experiences? Did you complete it? What were the highlights for your group?

Quasqueton
 
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i refereed the Temple of the Frog found in Supplement II Blackmoor (1975) many times.

i bought the stuff produced later, but it was crap. complete and utter garbage.
 

I planned to run this one as part of a Mystara campaign, but never made it. Adventures in Blackmoor is an interesting variation on the site based adventure, you explore the Blackmoor Comeback Inn in (at least) three different eras. The inn is an interesting location and the backstory is engaging, but the adventure itself is fairly by the numbers. I always felt like Arneson and Ritchie were really more interested in writing a sourcebook than an adventure. Once you get past the fact that every other NPC is carrying an intelligent sword the Rogues, Regents, and Rascals section has some great characters.

Temple of the Frog has some fun concepts (who wouldn't love a temple full of cultists and killer frogs in the middle of the swamp). However, it suffers from the same problem as many adventure modules, the 'hook' of the temple is played out long before you finish exploring it.

City of the Gods is fun and different. The real drawback is that the city is so huge, navigating it is so difficult, and the PCs chances of remaining undetected so small, that without some major DM handwaving their not likely to make it far enough to encounter the most interesting stuff. In fact, as I recall chances are pretty slim that the party will even make it inside.

The Duchy of Ten? Well, the Afridhi are kind of interesting. Unfortunately this adventure, unlike the others, doesn't need to be in Blackmoor and doesn't really add anything compelling to the setting. Notice that Arneson wasn't involved in this one. Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, for better or worse, have had the opportunity to grow beyond their creators' individual visons. Other people have been able to write interesting material for those settings. Blackmoor is all Dave Arneson, he has provided the only compelling vision of the setting. Which I imagine is just the way he wants it.

Morrow
 

The campaign material and npc information is far, far more interesting and useful than the adventure itself, and takes up the bulk of the book. The adventure is largely just a means of getting the PC's from the "modern-day" Known World to Blackmoor in the far, far past. Very little of the adventure actually takes place in Blackmoor.

DA1 was still vital for its time as the only easily available Blackmoor primer. However, I think the recent 3e hardback has superceded it. (That's coming from someone who's a big fan of B/X D&D, and isn't a particularly big fan of 3e, folks.)

Temple of the Frog and City of the Gods are quite a bit better, in terms of adventure content. The hooks to those adventures are pretty typical of 1986/87 (A)D&D adventures, with quite a bit of leading by the nose. If divorced from the plot and used as mini-settings, they are quite nice. I've often pondered using them in conjuction with S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

DA4, as mentioned by the previous poster, didn't really have much to do with Blackmoor, and wasn't really remarkable.

[EDIT for subject verb agreement]

R.A.
 
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I'll take the bait

diaglo said:
i refereed the Temple of the Frog found in Supplement II Blackmoor (1975) many times.

i bought the stuff produced later, but it was crap. complete and utter garbage.

now, is this your standard praise for all products, or is it worse then say anything else produced since the Carter administration?

(and you actually used Temple, can it be done?)
 

TerraDave said:
now, is this your standard praise for all products, or is it worse then say anything else produced since the Carter administration?

(and you actually used Temple, can it be done?)


as modules it didn't cut the mustard for me. as source material, i got what i could use.

everything put out by T$R 1985 and on... T1-4 esp. had problems in my expert opinion.


yes. i ran Temple. i'm running it right now for the OD&D campaign i'm currently refereeing.


edit: i actually have d02 material that is better than DA1....DA4. believe it or not.
 

rogueattorney said:
DA1 was still vital for its time as the only easily available Blackmoor primer. However, I think the recent 3e hardback has superceded it. (That's coming from someone who's a big fan of B/X D&D, and isn't a particularly big fan of 3e, folks.)

I really like D. A.'s Blackmoor, a great book and I even got it signed by Dave at MegaCon, Woohoo! :)
 

diaglo said:
edit: i actually have d02 material that is better than DA1....DA4. believe it or not.

Can you translate? You mean d20 Blackmoor is better than Da1-4? Please clarify, your hat confused my understanding. :heh:
 



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